Joint seminar: LeuvenBath

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Joint seminar Leuven-Bath

• Graham Room Cross-national policy learning

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The OMC and its Antecedents

• OMC Cross-national policy learning as a tool for
  economic and social transformation of Europe
• Components of the OMC (2000-)
• Indicators (benchmarks of national performance)
• Comparative assessments of national policies
• Exchange of good practice
• Antecedents
• Luxembourg Employment Process (1997)
• EMU

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Antecedents Poverty and Social Inclusion

• European Anti-Poverty Programmes (1975-80,
  1985-89, 1990-94)
• European Observatory on National Social Exclusion
  Policies (1990-94)
• Indicators (benchmarks of national performance)
• Comparisons of national rates of poverty (1980-)
• Eurostat harmonisation of statistical indicators
  (late 1980s- )
• Comparative assessments of national policies
  (1980-)
• Public debates in Italy and elsewhere
• Exchange of good practice
• Cross-national networks of action projects
  (1975-)
• Open meetings and public hearings at national and
  European levels (1980s-)
• OMC systematises and mainstreams this process
• But does it draw sufficiently on this earlier
  experience?

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Is Cross-national Policy Learning Possible?

• Countries are locked into different institutional
  trajectories
• can policy-makers learn how to move their
  countries onto new trajectories? Are lessons
  from other countries of any use?
• Alber (2006)
• Employment and unemployment performance
• Scandinavians and Anglo-Saxons ?
• Countries of the middle way ?
• Petmesidou and Mossialos (2006)
• Greek tragedy ? ? ?
• Kok Report (2004) Lisbon failure and reform

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Can we learn? - lessons from the past (1)

• OMC Indicators for Benchmarking
• Earlier European experience
• Indicators become potent only through deployment
  in domestic political debate
• Risk of embarrassment for EComm and undermining
  of consensus
• Cross-national learning will be contentious,
  interest-driven and politically uncomfortable

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Can we learn? - lessons from the past (2)

• OMC Peer review and good practice
• Earlier European experience
• Start with problems then search for relevant
  good practices rather than vice versa
• Support cross-national networks of practitioners
  and administrators epistemic communities as
  repositories of diverse good practice
• Allow diverse local agendas and politics to drive
  cross-national learning instead of seeking to
  distil European best practice (Athens)
• Accept that cross-national learning will be
  contentious, interest-driven and politically
  uncomfortable

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Can we learn? - lessons from the past (3)

• OMC Social and economic are interdependent
• Earlier European experience
• From individual wellbeing to administration to
  political economy
• Demystification and clash of paradigms
• 2005 Reforms Greater coherence for social Lisbon
• 2005 reforms re-connect social inclusion with
  other social policies
• Disconnect from economic Lisbon
• Social policy as a productive force
• Human investment and skills
• National innovation systems
• International political economy
• economic restructuring
• globalisation, immigration, development

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Can we learn? - lessons from the past (4)

• What sort of evidence of what works?
• OMC and examples of good practice
• European Poverty Programmes
• Demystification of paradigms
• Repositories of diverse good practice
• US randomised controlled trials

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Can we learn? - lessons from the past (5)

• OMC Who does the learning?
• Vision policy actors, social partners, civil
  society, Parliament
• Actuality administrative procedure
• Earlier European experience
• Practitioners and local communities actively
  engaged with their practical interests
• Bob Holman (Faith in the Poor)
• Using European initiatives to call governments to
  account

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Can we learn? - lessons from the past (6)

• Windows of opportunity (Marlene)
• National sensitivities and subsidiarity
• Consensus or veto
• Constraints on lesson drawing
• Heroic periods of European policy making
• 1997-2003
• 1988-1992

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Conclusion

• Cross-national policy learning is both possible
  and desirable
• It will be contentious, interest-driven and
  politically uncomfortable
• It will therefore demand political courage from
  those who orchestrate it
• Positive engagement with the European public
  experimentation in social and economic renewal
  support for a diversity of national trajectories
• Consensus and timidity and progressive loss of
  public engagement

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References

• Alber, J (2006), 'The European Social Model and
  the United States', European Union Politics,
  7(3) 393-419.
• R Holman Faith in the Poor
• Petmesidou, M and Mossialos, E (eds) (2006),
  Social Policy Developments in Greece
• Room, G et al (1992), Anti-Poverty
  Action-Research in Europe